Nothing says Christmas quite like the sound of a choir performing carols. This choir happens to be composed of tubas and euphoniums. The group came together in 2002, and has played at various venues throughout Los Alamos every holiday season since then.
The choir is made up of a core of adult musicians from other groups in Los Alamos (Big Band, Symphony, etc.) and is augmented by high school students. They play an mix of arrangements specifically created for a tuba choir. The concert will be 7:15 p.m. Dec. 20 at Fuller Lodge. Admission is free and is sponsored by The Los Alamos Arts Council.
Top from left, Larry Bronisz, Dave Korzekwa, Ryan Finn, Sally Grindstaff, Jenny Lee, Jerry Morzinski and Deniece Korzekwa.

Like light through a prism, Los Alamos has many unique “colors” of musical talent to offer.
The Los Alamos Community Winds invites the public to attend its 4th Annual Holiday Prism Concert as we showcase the many sounds of the season. The show begins 7 p.m. Dec. 13 at Crossroads Bible Church.
Featured are local string quartet, String Theory performing “Carol of the Bells.” They will be joined by several other players for Karl Jenkins “Palladio.”
Also on the program are vocalist Rene LeClaire performing music by Miklos Rosza and John Jacob Niles, pianist Frances Meier with music by Claude Thornhill and the First United Methodist Church of Los Alamos Handbell Choir under the direction of Trudy Gabel.
“Prism Concerts were originally conceived in some of our nation’s colleges and universities as ways to promote academic programs in music and recruit students by showcasing (in a single concert) all the different facets of the ensemble curriculum,” said LACW Director Ted Vives. “Our hope is to do the same for the amazing variety of musical talent that we have here in Los Alamos.”

A performance of Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Rabindranath Tagore’s play, “Chitra,” an adaptation of a story from the epic poem, the “Mahabharata” at St. John’s College in Santa Fe.
The play will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication in book form by Tagore, an Indian philosopher and poet.
Directed by Mary Mier, her theater troupe, Teatro Tierra Amarilla will perform, 4 p.m. Dec. 14 in the Great Hall on the St. John’s campus.
Tickets are $10, St John’s students free with ID. Donations of $5 are suggested for St. John’s students.

For the third year in a row, Taos Lifestyle Productions and Taos native, singer-songwriter Max Gomez will bring a night of Songs and Stories on Dec. 27.
Americana singer-songwriter John Fullbright will also perform.
Gomez’s 2013 breakthrough song, “Rule the World” was dubbed as one of the “best new songs of 2013” by Esquire magazine.
In October 2014, Gomez was included alongside a lineup of well-known performers including Tom Jones, Soundgarden, Norah Jones and Puss N Boots, Pearl Jam and many more at Neil and Pegi Young’s Bridge School Benefit Concert in Mountain View, Calif.
Gomez began performing in Taos bars at age 15, where he played originals and covered songs by his musical inspirations, Robert Johnson, “Big” Bill Broonzy and John Prine. Gomez continues to receive national accolades for his skill at building stories into his grassroots, Americana musical style. Visit maxgomezmusic.com for more.

The Sangre de Cristo Chorale is honoring the 25 year legacy of the late Sheldon Kalberg, the first and longest director of the chorale, by dedicating its winter 2014 concert, titled “Darkness Brings Light” to him.
The Los Alamos performance is 7 p.m. Saturday at Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church, 2390 North Road.
The chorale will perform works by such diverse composers as Tomas Luis da Vittoria, Henry Purcell , John Rutter and Dolly Parton.
The concert’s theme is intended to take listeners on a musical journey from sorrow and darkness to joy, beauty and light, reminding the audience that it is possible to share in a feeling of a communal dawn.
Among the pieces the chorale will perform is Randall Thompson’s “Choose Something Like a Star,” a piece particularly beloved by Kalberg, and played at his recent memorial service.
Though the repertoire was selected prior to Kalberg’s death, the chorale wanted to dedicate both the music and lyrics to him as an expressive love and appreciation felt for him.

The Los Alamos community will be treated to the winter concert from the Los Alamos Symphony Orchestra.
The concert will set the scene and get people in the mood for the holidays by making the event a holiday spectacular.
On tap will be familiar seasonal tunes, a sing-along and a raffle for a chance to win a one-time opportunity to conduct a full symphony orchestra to the song “Jingle Bells.”
The concert will begin 7 p.m. Friday at the Crossroads Bible Church.
The Los Alamos Symphony Orchestra traditionally presents this popular concert each year as a gift to the community.
Conductor Don Gerheart says the program should appeal to all ages.
There is no admission charge although donations will be gratefully accepted.

Moviegoers in France, Germany and even Seattle love “Bagdad Cafe” (1987, Rated PG). This incredible and incredibly strange film has won awards across the globe for its casting, acting, screenplay and was chosen Best Foreign Film several times over. What will Los Alamos think? That’s always an interesting question to ask.
“Bagdad Cafe,” showing Thursday at Mesa Public Library, begins with a German couple on a desolate road. They are well-dressed — over-dressed for their surrounding. They appear to be married and not happy about it. The road, the car, the rusty lean-to that serves as a urinal, everything is tilted, disoriented, uncomfortable to watch. The couple’s arguments are in German, so English-speaking viewers are even further ungrounded and upended.
And yet, sense prevails. Quite logically, the woman opens the car door, grabs her bag and walks. And once she leaves the car, the movie changes. The asphalt lies horizontal and beneath the sky. Her feet, even in her ridiculous pumps, are firmly planted.
The unusual prudence of this opening sequence prevails throughout “Bagdad Cafe,” as the German woman, Jasmin Münchgstettner (Marianne Sägebrecht), creates a new life for herself on the side of the road.